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COVER STORY 22 airportbusiness April 2016 "The fuel farm was one area we lost control over until we started clearing it late Saturday when contractors began working on the fuel farm to get fuel to the snow melters." Coordinating with the tower allows equip- ment time to clear open runways at Manchester- Boston, Braley said. The tower will give opera- tions a 10-minute window between flights so equipment staged at the runway approach can do a run on the full length of the runway and come back during the next 10-minute spot. Meanwhile another team is clearing the ramp. "We pretty much can touch 60 to 75 per- cent of the airfield every 30 minutes," he said. "We've got a pretty good fleet of multitasking equipment." Braley said building communications amongst the snow team and other areas pre- pares the entities to work in tandem during snow events. "We rely heavily on communication with the air traffic control tower," Braley said. "We've built confidence. They're very confident in our abilities and our communication and we're very confident in their abilities, so everything we do is continuing to build on that confidence. "We don't want to freelance. We stick to the terminology. We don't ask for something we know jeopardizes them in anyway. When our operators are on the field, even our movements are done in a deliberate way. When they know we're approaching an area we're not supposed to go, when we get near that runway or hold position we're moving slowly or moving per- pendicular so it doesn't even look like we're going to drive on that surface if they see us." "We have an enormous fleet to handle a snow storm of this size and we deployed every piece of all our 55 pieces of specialized equip- ment, including multifunctional equipment, snow blowers and front-end loaders," Smith said. "We deployed everything in a strategic manner." One piece of equipment BWI didn't have was something to remove snow from grassy areas. Instrument landing systems couldn't be used if snow was above 18 inches on the grass, so Liberty Mountain Resort, a ski resort in Fairfield, Penn., loaned the airport a snowcat to clear the grassy areas. Smith said it was a major contributing factor in allowing BWI to reopen. "BWI Marshall used that strategy back in 2010 as well and since there there's a growing number of airports using this same strategy of creative and innovative approaches to address- ing whatever challenges," he said. "We don't know all the challenges, but it's this kind of innovation the team here brought in back in 2010 and are doing to handle Jonas and how we got through it." Replace your storefront "pull-down gates" with HUFCOR ® movable glass walls OPERABLE | VERTICAL LIFT | GLASS WALL | ACCORDION 2101 Kennedy Rd. | Janesville, WI 53547 | 800-542-2371 Ext. 214 | www.hufcor.com •Sell while Closed •Increase Storefront Presence •Enhance Passenger Experience •For more information visit: www.hufcor.com/airports SUPERIOR window-shopping EXPERIENCE S E E T H E D I F F E R E N C E www.aviationpros.com/12183659